Keyword Research Without the Guesswork

Keyword research goes wrong in two ways: chasing high-volume terms you'll never rank for, or targeting terms nobody searches. The goal is the overlap — real demand you have a realistic shot at.

Start with the customer, not the tool

Before opening any keyword tool, list the problems your audience is trying to solve in their own words. Sales calls, support tickets, and Reddit threads are gold — they show the exact language people use, which is often different from industry jargon.

Group by intent

• Informational — learning ("what is technical SEO").
• Commercial — comparing ("best SEO tools").
• Transactional — ready to act ("hire SEO consultant").
• Navigational — looking for a specific brand or page.

Map each keyword to the stage of the journey it belongs to. This tells you what kind of page to build and how aggressively to pitch your offer.

Judge difficulty honestly

Difficulty scores are estimates. Look at the actual results page: if it's dominated by giant brands with deep content, a new site won't crack it soon. Instead, target specific long-tail variations where the results are weaker — you can win those now and grow authority for the harder terms later.

Prioritize with a simple score

I rank opportunities by three factors: business value, realistic winnability, and search demand. A medium-volume keyword that's easy to rank for and speaks directly to a buyer beats a high-volume term that's impossible to win and only attracts browsers.